


and the next

by mcwho



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Age Difference, Age Regression/De-Aging, Established Relationship, I wrote this for me but you can read it I guess, Lingerie, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Underage Sex, more like pwp with hint of plot, read the tags first though, sorta - Freeform, this is so self indulgent i dont even know how to tag it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:53:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25608454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcwho/pseuds/mcwho
Summary: They have him in the common room of all places, and they won’t let Steve see him.or: a time-travel glitch lands 1936's bucky right in 2025 steve's lap
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 145
Kudos: 1210





	and the next

**Author's Note:**

> read the tags etc
> 
> thank u to venusmonstrosa for beta and support

They have him in the common room of all places, and they won’t let Steve see him.

“He’s already freaked out,” Sam explains peaceably. “How’s he gonna take it if you go barrelling in there guns blazing–”

“I’m going to have to see him eventually,” Steve says impatiently. He’d come over as soon as he’d gotten the call, as soon as he heard the words _Bucky_ and _quantum_ and _don’t panic._

Naturally, he’d panicked.

“And you will,” Sam assures him, glancing around and then lowering his voice a little.

There are other Agents milling around the corridor they’re in. Steve figures very few of them have high enough clearance to be privy to the intricacies of the case of the 1936-brand Bucky that was zapped into the middle of 2025’s Times Square this afternoon.

Steve sighs, lowers his voice too, takes a deep breath. “When?” 

“He’s in there now with Hill, getting a, uh - _simplified_ rundown of what happened. She didn’t want to bring him down to the labs or anything in case it’d freak him out. And no one wanted to deal with _you_ after you find out they have Bucky in a lab,” he says with a meaningful eyebrow raise.

“You say he’s– ‘36, that’s–”

“He’s a kid still,” Sam confirms. “Says he’s sixteen. We haven’t done any testing yet but he walked through the security scanners at the doors, and he’s all warm-blooded, no alien-robot shit at play or anything. Plus, there’s the energy surge we picked up when he appeared, which is about what we’d expect for time-travel. Everything checks out. It’s definitely him.”

Steve lets out a shaky exhale.

“I want to see him,” he says again.

“He came in here shivering, all shook up just ‘cause he saw some traffic and billboards, Steve. Let’s at least wait for the okay from Hill before he has to be face-to-face with the future version of his best-friend. Boyfriend? Look,” Sam says, getting back on track. Steve rolls his eyes. “I’ll go check in and see where he’s at. If he seems like he’s doing good, then we’ll let you at him.”

***

Bucky gets excited about the lab when it’s mentioned. His face lights up, the science fanatic that he is, and he can’t seem to understand why he’d want to stay out of one, which makes Steve’s heart ache in various, complicated ways.

So they’re in one of the workshops now, and an Agent is performing various tests on Bucky and handing the results to the other white lab coats in the room, who, in turn, feed them back into various beeping machines.

They take his temperature, make him blow into things, shine lights in his eyes to check how his pupils dilate. Explaining what they’re doing aloud at every turn, mostly for Steve’s benefit, who’s stood there watching them like a hawk. Bucky, on the other hand, continues to look perfectly at ease.

They still haven’t spoken much beyond their initial greetings, which had consisted of Steve entering the common room, led by Sam, and Bucky’s eyes going big and round in shock.

_“Steve?”_ he gaped. Steve had gaped back at him, at his chin still rounded by youth, hair cut short, dressed in a shirt and a pair of khaki shorts that stopped right above his bony knees. Bucky had looked him up and down as he stood to his feet and then took a step back as he realised he had to look _up_ at him now and asked, “The fuck happened to _you_?”

Steve had huffed a sigh of relief, almost feeling silly for being so anxious about seeing him. It was him. He was still _Bucky_. Still his best-friend. Just – smaller. Younger.

He’s eyeing Steve now, sat atop a medical bench as another physician in a white coat taps a small wooden hammer lightly against his knee, Bucky’s leg reflexively kicking outwards each time.

“So all these people work for you?” Bucky asks, looking very relaxed for someone who’s just suddenly been yanked out of his own timeline and dumped into another. 

Steve makes a face. “Not exactly,” he says cautiously.

“But you’re the Captain,” Bucky counters, raising an eyebrow. “That’s what Mr. Wilson called you.”

Steve smiles to himself, thinking of how Sam would get a kick out of hearing the words ‘Mr. Wilson’ come out of Bucky’s mouth.

“It’s complicated,” Steve says, unhelpfully. Bucky frowns.

“What, you keep secrets in the future?” he asks, a disapproving furrow to his brow.

“No,” Steve denies, instinctively defensive. “Just– I just don’t want to overload you with information or anything, Buck. It’s a lot to deal with.” 

“You’d have my head if I tried babying _you_ like that, Rogers,” he retorts. Suddenly, his expression twists. “What about my Steve? He gonna know where I am? We were meant to go to Coney Island tomorrow.”

Steve falters a little. “He’ll–” he begins, and then cuts himself off, unsure of how to tell him that to those in his original timeline, it’ll be as though he disappeared without a trace. That they don’t know exactly how long it’ll be until they figure out how to send him back.

“We’re going to do everything we can to get you back home, Bucky,” comes Banner, who is writing something on a clipboard at the other end of the room. “And in the meantime, we’ll make sure you’re taken care of.”

Steve nods gratefully at him. Bucky grimaces, picking up on the avoidance of the question, the implied message that is ‘ _this kind of sucks, but keep your chin up, pal’_.

***

Steve brings him to his apartment.

Bucky spends a solid twenty minutes just playing with the dimmer switch in the hall.

After that, he switches focus, comes into the living room and gapes at the television. When Steve actually turns it on for him, he gets real close to it, kind of like they used to at home with their tiny, dingy black-and-white box.

“Don’t do that, you’ll ruin your eyes,” Steve chastises, feeling like both their mothers as he says it. Bucky seems to hear it too, because he glances back at Steve, raising his eyebrows.

“How old are you now?” he asks, narrowing his eyes. Steve laughs to himself a little, self-conscious, almost.

“I’ve stopped keeping count,” he says honestly – the real number is up in the hundreds, but even ballparking it for Bucky would unleash a whole new stream of questions, and he’s trying to freak him out as little as possible.

“You’re all grown up,” Bucky says, eyeing him again. Steve’s dressed casually, just jeans and a V-neck, but Bucky keeps looking at him like he’s decked out in nanotech. “Got your own fancy place and everything, and a beard, and people callin’ you _Captain_. I had to save you from getting beat up by a girl yesterday.”

“Hey,” Steve says, lips twitching with a smile. “I’ll have you know Anna-May Gates packed a hell of a punch.”

Bucky grins suddenly, all teeth, his whole face lighting up with it. “You remember her?”

“’Course I do,” Steve smiles. “You don’t forget the first girl who gave you a noogie.” 

“How’d she end up?” Bucky asks, curious.

Steve pauses, unsure of how to break it to him that he’d disappeared off the face of the earth in the 1940s and then re-emerged seventy odd years later to find all of his peers either dead or dying.

“Good,” he says after a beat. When Bucky starts to look as if he’s going to continue the interrogation, he says, “You hungry? We’ve got ice-cream,” because he knows if there’s one thing Bucky can be plied by, it’s desserts.

Predictably, his eyes light up, allowing the obvious distraction.

“You got strawberry?”

***

Steve video calls his Bucky in the evening like he always does, smiling warmly when he appears on the screen, dressed in a soft grey tee, hair tied into a messy bun atop his head.

“Hey, Buck,” Steve greets him, feeling like he can breathe a little easier now that he can see him, can know for sure that this glitch hasn’t left him hurt in some way or another. “How’s your mission going?”

“What’s this I’m hearing about me running around Times Square?” Bucky asks him in lieu of a hello. His arms are folded, and he’s wearing a pouty frown that Steve instinctively wants to kiss away.

“Sam tell you?” 

“I’m _trending_ ,” Bucky says. “Or at least Mini-Me is. You’ve got to get on Twitter, Steve.”

“There goes top secrecy,” Steve sighs tiredly. “What’re they saying?”

Bucky shrugs. “They’ve got some blurry pictures from this afternoon. Rumour has it they cloned me and they’re trying to keep it all hush-hush. The swarm of black SUVs that showed up to take ‘ _me_ ’ away didn’t exactly disprove that.”

Steve tries to keep his voice as soothing as possible as he explains. “Hill says it was probably some error in an attempt to play with time travel. We don’t even know if the error was made by someone in our timeline, but I promise, they’ve got all the best people looking into it, Buck,” he assures him.

Bucky’s eyebrows furrow, stunned into a brief silence.

“So it is me,” he says flatly. “Am I- okay?” 

“You’re perfect. They did a ton of tests. Bloodwork.”

“ _SHIELD_ took my blood?” Bucky glowers, ever-distrustful of the letter agencies.

“Banner had eyes on everything the whole time,” Steve says gently. “They destroyed the samples right after they tested them. Saw it myself.”

Bucky grumbles as he settles back into his motel bed.

“Well is he there now?” Bucky asks, knowing full well that Steve would immediately adopt, feed and house any variation of Bucky that came across his path.

“In the guest bedroom, asleep,” Steve says. “Passed out early. Poor thing must be exhausted.”

“Yeah, a hundred years of travel would do it,” Bucky murmurs, the corner of his mouth curving upwards in an incredulous smile. “So, what, I’m gonna have to babysit myself when I get home?”

“Aren’t you the one always going on about self care?”

“You’re not funny, Steve,” Bucky sternly informs him, lips twitching.

Steve smiles. “Besides, we’re hoping we’ll be able to get him back in his own timeline sooner rather than later. I don’t know if he’ll still be around two weeks from now.”

Bucky hums pensively, eyeing Steve close, in a way that’s eerily similar to how his younger self’s been looking at him all day.

“How’s he dealing with, uh. All that,” he says, jutting his chin at Steve.

Steve looks down at his t-shirt and flannel pyjama bottoms, then back at Bucky again.

“All of what?”

“You know,” Bucky shrugs. “Seeing you. All grown up. Knowing he ends up putting a ring on it.”

“Oh,” Steve says. He clears his throat. “I didn’t– I’m trying not to tell him things that could be dangerous for him to know. You know how time-travel can be. Besides, he’s just a kid.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow. “Uh-huh,” he drawls. “Right. Think that’s going to stop him wanting to climb you like a tree?” he asks.

Steve flushes. “ _Buck_ ,” he says in a scandalised whisper, glancing towards his closed bedroom door – the Bucky currently asleep in their guest room is unenhanced and there’s no chance of him overhearing, but the words still make Steve feel like he should turn the volume down and then turn the laptop off and then bury it out in the yard out of shame.

“What?” Bucky says, smirking, unrepentant. “I’m just saying. It’s not like we’ve ever gone more than a couple hours alone without–”

“He’s sixteen,” Steve says flatly.

Bucky snorts. “You don’t remember me at sixteen, do you?” 

Steve swallows. “I’m trying not to,” he admits weakly.

But he remembers alright. Remembers Bucky coming around to Steve’s late, while his Ma was out working the night shift at the hospital, neck all bruised up if he’d been out with some dame. On _those_ nights Steve would get all sullen with him, insisting he wasn’t in the mood ‘til he’d whine at Steve not to be sore at him, and then about how much he needed something in him, keeping on and _on_ ‘til Steve would finally have him roll him over, fuck him to shut him up, hard and mean and bruising, just like he liked.

Like he still likes.

It’s a jarring memory to look back on after this afternoon. _Seeing_ that Bucky, all lithe, long limbs and big doe eyes and a pouty, soft mouth that looks like butter wouldn’t even melt in. Knowing he was meant to go to Coney Island with Steve tomorrow, all the way back in ‘36 – knowing he’d probably have convinced Steve to let him suck him off behind one of the stalls, the little minx.

“You doing okay, pal?” Bucky asks him from behind his screen. “I break your brain or something?”

“I – shouldn’t. Right?” Steve says haltingly. Bucky’s been gone for a little more than a week and he’s not going to be back for at least two more – but he doesn’t know if he could blame this, if he did this, purely on sexual frustration, as if just anyone would do. Because they wouldn’t, and it’s _Bucky_ , but Christ, he’s sixteen years old.

Bucky raises an eyebrow. “I’d be offended if you didn’t. Meaning, so would he.”

“Buck,” Steve chides.

“What?” Bucky says, indignant. “ _You’re_ allowed to dirty talk all _you_ want about my ass and tits-”

“Buck,” Steve groans, but of course, Bucky barrels on.

“-and every other amount of depraved things you wanna do to ‘em, but I’m not allowed to say I’d fuck all and any versions of you? Bullshit.”

A muscle in Steve’s jaw jumps. They stare each other down for a moment before Steve asks, in a mumble, “You wearing any bottoms?”

Bucky rolls his eyes, a slow smile spreading across his face. “Nope,” he answers, popping the _P_. “Wanna see?”

***

He knows Bucky’s always been a late riser, but all the same, he leaves a note out for him explaining where he is just in case he wakes up before he returns from his morning run. 

He’s gone a little longer than usual, the burn in his muscles from pushing himself leaving him with a satisfying ache, like pressing on a bruise.

It helps him clear his head. As he returns, he feels reinvigorated, refreshed, and a little surer of his capabilities to see this Bucky and the Bucky that’d fingered himself open on camera for him last night, as two separate people.

The one that can’t legally vote still is in the kitchen when Steve gets home, rummaging noisily through the cupboards.

“You’re back,” Bucky greets Steve as he enters the room, not pulling his head out of the cupboard. “Saw your note. I can’t believe you can actually run now without gettin’ all wheezy.”

He’s dressed in a pair of old sweats Steve had shrunk in the wash a while back, and one of Steve’s t-shirts, which hangs off of him like a dress. His hair’s mussed with sleep, and he’s bent over at a near 90-degree angle, curiously analysing their canned foods. Steve feels like a hopeless pervert as he forces himself to tear his gaze upward.

“Since when do you get up before noon?” he asks in response.

Bucky finally raises his head and looks up at him. Steve watches his eyes widen almost imperceptibly, before flashing downwards, to Steve’s soft, grey shorts, and then back up to Steve’s face, quickly. His face colours pink.

“Since, um. Today.” His voice cracks as he says it, and he turns a deeper shade of red. Steve’s cock twitches.

Like yesterday, he hasn’t got on anything out of the ordinary. Just a black t-shirt and a pair of jogging shorts. Admittedly, the t-shirt is damn near soaked through with sweat now, clinging to him wetly, and as for the shorts; grey joggers have never been great at hiding much. So. He understands the problem.

Steve racks his brain for what to say to put a clearly violently aroused teenager at ease.

“You hungry?” Steve asks eventually, and then wants to kick himself for how that sounds. Bucky swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

“Sure,” he squeaks, cherry red. “I just– I’m gonna go wash up first.”

“Of course,” Steve says, stepping well out of his path for him to speed-walk away, into the bathroom, where he slams the door behind him. Steve closes his eyes, tilts his head to the ceiling, and sighs deeply.

***

Over the next couple of days, Steve catches Bucky trying to discreetly launder his bedsheets in the sink twice, and pretends not to notice both times.

The third time, as he walks past the kitchen, Steve finally says, “I told you about the washing machine. You can use it if you need it, Buck,” as casually and gently as he can, but Bucky still whips his head around and glares at him in embarrassed indignation.

“I don’t need to use it,” he declares, shutting off the tap and turning to face Steve properly, standing backed up against the counter like he’s trying to hide the large white sheet in the sink from view with his body. Steve rolls his eyes. “It’s a waste of water, I don’t– I was just– just freshening them up,” he garbles.

Steve raises his eyebrows, unconvinced. This is the same person who’s been pestering him for two days now about letting him sneak his Roomba back with him when he leaves, so he doesn’t have to ever sweep the floor again.

“I know your ma has to nag your ear off before you do your laundry,” Steve says drily. “Now you’re handwashing your bed things every other day for fun though, huh?”

Bucky’s mouth twists into an ever-familiar frown that means Steve needs to back the hell off.

“Well so what if I am?” he says, defensive.

Steve nods, backing off, flashing his palms in surrender.

“Okay,” he says. Then, he hooks a thumb over his shoulder. “But just a reminder. Washer and dryer are in the little room next to the front door. Soap too.”

Bucky continues to glower, until Steve backs all the way out of the room.

He ends up going to his office, doing his best to sort out some paperwork he’s been putting off. Ten minutes later, he hears the tell-tale sounds of the washing machine being turned on and smiles to himself.

***

If Steve wasn’t enhanced, he wouldn’t be able to hear Bucky at night at all, because of the efforts he knows the kid takes to keep himself quiet. The constant washing of the sheets is bad enough, but having to hear Bucky get them messy is infinitely worse.

It’s not his fault, either. He _is_ trying to keep it down. Steve knows, because he can hear it. Can hear him choke out whimpers and moans that are muffled by a pillow or a fist or the goddamn sheets.

He notices Bucky’s got a split lip that seems to have come from nowhere one morning, and can’t help thinking of his teeth in it the night before, digging into the skin ‘til it broke, barely even noticing because he felt that good. 

He also can’t stop staring.

They sit together in the living-room after breakfast; Steve’s reading a book while Bucky channel-hops, and then all of a sudden, he glances over, eyes bright as Steve’s gaze flashes upward to meet his, caught.

Steve clears his throat.

“Vaseline does wonders for a bloody lip,” he suggests as casually as he can, going back to his book.

Bucky refuses to let him play the noncommittally concerned citizen. 

“I don’t know,” he drawls, emboldened. “Vaseline’s kinda what got me into this mess in the first place.”

Steve tries not to react as the full implications of that hit him. It’s not like he doesn’t _know_ what Bucky sounds like when he’s got something inside him. Just that having him confirm it is – something.

His eyes continue to scan unseeingly through the words on the page in front of him. “Well make sure you pace yourself. You know they say you’ll go blind if you overindulge.”

Bucky snorts, and then flings a cushion at Steve’s head.

***

Steve brings him out of the house the next day. It’s not that Bucky’s at any risk of getting bored at home, considering when Steve introduced him to the internet he’d ended up having to start turning off the Wi-Fi at night time because it was the only way Bucky would ever stop watching science experiments on YouTube and actually go to sleep. But he has errands to run and Bucky’s too tiny and too untrained to leave alone in the house, and some fresh air would do him good anyway.

They stop at the bodega by their place first. Steve picks up some eggs, milk and bread while Bucky stares at the candy by the counter with the reverent countenance of a man who has not been fed in many, many days.

As Steve sets his groceries down on the counter, Bucky glances up at him with big hopeful eyes. Steve rolls his own.

“Get whatever you like, Buck,” he tells him, because he’s a sucker for giving Bucky what he wants. Bucky looks shocked, like he hadn’t expected to actually get this far.

“You sure? Some of these are like three dollars.”

Steve huffs a laugh. The clerk smiles to himself too as he starts to scan Steve’s things – whether it’s because he’s heard about Bucky’s rumoured, younger clone and thinks he’s witnessing a miracle of science, or because he simply finds the pennywise teenager Steve has recently acquired amusing, Steve doesn’t know.

“Three dollars doesn’t go as far as it used to, trust me,” Steve says, nodding towards the coveted candy. “Go ahead.”

Bucky eyes him for another second, as if trying to ascertain whether Steve’s actually serious or not, and then starts to grab and place one of almost everything on the counter. Steve pays for it all, and the clerk bags it up for them to take away.

Bucky chooses to unwrap a lollipop as they leave the bodega, carrying the rest of his goodies in his shopping bag as he distractingly slurps away at it. 

Steve explains price inflation to him as best as he can when he asks, and as they continue on, he starts to feel like the way Bucky’s wet, pink tongue curves around the cherry-flavoured object of his affections as he blinks up at him isn’t quite so innocent.

***

As they continue with Steve’s errands, it turns into a day that _would’ve_ been boring, if it weren’t for Bucky’s company and latent fascination with just about everything 21st century.

He gawks at the ATMs and automated touchscreens at the bank. His head turns this way and that as cars speed by, and when Steve brings him to the mall, he’s more interested in people-watching than their real mission, which is to get him some of his _own_ clothes so Steve can stop losing his mind over the sight of him parading around in his.

“Fellas wear pants that tight these days?” Bucky says in a whisper as they stand in the denim section. Steve follows his gaze, and sees he’s staring at a man in dark skinny jeans, stood a couple of feet away from them both, rooting through the sales rack.

“And tighter,” Steve confirms, thinking fondly of the yoga pants he’ll come to love in about eighty odd years.

Bucky glances up at him. “Can I do that?”

A part of Steve wants to selfishly tell him no – wants to tell him _no_ for the sake of his own sanity, because the idea of the Bucky in front of him in skin-tight _anything_ sounds downright indecent, even more than it’d usually be.

“Of course you can,” Steve manages, because clearly, he’s that weak.

***

Steve has _some_ regrets about letting him buy anything and everything he wants when, the next day, Bucky saunters out of his room in the tiny pair of running shorts he’d grabbed off the clearance rack. 

He meets Steve filling out a report at his desk and coyly asks whether he thinks they’re too small, or if this is just how shorts fit in the future.

Steve manages to keep his voice even, which is a feat in itself, and reassures him that they fit perfectly fine, keeping his expression smooth even as Bucky frowns at his lack of visible reaction. 

Steve re-adjusts himself in his pants once Bucky is safely out of the room.

***

“I read about your Bucky,” Bucky says a day later, when they’re having breakfast for dinner just because. He almost sounds mad, like he’s accusing Steve of something. “On the _internet_ ,” he adds, like he’s offended the world wide web knew about their eternal union before he did.

It’s not that Steve had been purposely hiding his –technically, _their_ – relationship. 

Bucky had just never asked about it in much depth, other than hesitantly questioning where this century’s Bucky is, to which Steve had assured him that he’s alive and well and away on a business trip in a vague geographical location. 

And, okay, Steve had also taken down their pictures before Bucky saw any of them, and stopped wearing his ring and alright, fine, yes, he was hiding it. He just didn’t feel it’d help, nor did he feel like he’d be ready for that information, considering he’s just sixteen and Steve knows he still thinks the fact that girls can’t satisfy him like Steve does is just a side effect of them being best buds rather than what it really is, but. Here they are.

“Yeah?” Steve says, carefully nonchalant as he bites into his bagel. He knew he should have blocked certain search terms on the iPad he gave him, but he genuinely didn’t expect Bucky to figure out much of an Internet existed outside of his beloved Youtube videos.

“You’re married,” Bucky says, stirring sugar into his hot chocolate viciously. “To me.”

Steve bobs his head in a cautious nod, not particularly wanting to give Bucky any more ammo in his relentless mission to chip away at his self-control.

“To a version of you,” he admits.

Bucky frowns pensively into the dark, swirling depths of his cocoa.

“And that’s allowed in the future,” he clarifies.

“More than allowed,” Steve says gently. “Celebrated.”

“Am I going to– are we gonna get married? Me and my Steve?”

Steve doesn’t think he’s ever been more certain of anything – but he doesn’t want to start confirming too much. He’s just glad that Bucky’s still enough of an internet amateur that he hadn’t gotten past the tabloid articles on the wedding and the paparazzi shots of them holding hands in Central Park, and into their actual individual history.

“Aren’t you two married already?” Steve says, taking a teasing tone with him.

Bucky looks up at him, smiling a little, reluctantly pleased that he remembers. “That was just pretend,” he says bashfully. “When we were kids.”

Steve chuckles. “You’re still a kid, Buck.”

Bucky frowns again, sitting upright. “I’m nearly seventeen,” he says indignantly. “I shave and do push-ups and all that other stuff.”

Steve laughs again. “Yeah? What’re you up to now, four in a row?” he jeers. Bucky picks up a Cornflake and flicks it at Steve’s head with sniper-like accuracy.

“Dick,” Bucky says.

“Sorry,” Steve says sarcastically, correcting himself. “Five in a row.”

Bucky tosses another Cornflake, and Steve rolls his eyes.

“Alright, enough,” he says, but Bucky’s snickering to himself now and flinging another, eyes bright with amusement as Steve levels his Captain America voice on him and says, “Buck, I’m serious. Stop it.”

“Make me,” Bucky challenges with a grin, reaching for the box again. 

Steve yanks it out of his reach, and Bucky stands and grabs at it. So Steve stands too, which is a mistake, because Bucky doesn’t back off, and Steve ends up holding the cereal box up above his head as Bucky tries to snatch it, one hand bunched up in Steve’s shirt like he’s trying to tug him down, the other reaching up to grab at it. Steve doesn’t budge.

“You’re a real pain in the ass, you know that?” Steve says mildly, failing to stifle a laugh as Bucky, quite literally, attempts to climb him like a tree.

Bucky changes tack, his fingers digging into Steve’s ribs. Steve’s ticklish enough still that he gives a little, flinching away. It’s purely instinctual, the way he grabs Bucky by the wrist to stop him, just a little too tight, but it makes something tighten in Steve’s gut, the sharp intake of breath he gives when he can’t tug free.

“Come on, Buck,” Steve says, trying to talk him down, de-escalate, but Bucky’s eyes are bright and mischievous, like Steve’s right where he wants him. 

He grabs at the goddamn Cornflakes box again and Steve sets it down on the counter behind him, then tries letting Bucky go, and ends up grabbing at his wrists all over as Bucky immediately tries to paw at him again.

“What, think I can’t take you anymore just ‘cause you’re big now?” Bucky asks, a little out of breath.

Steve looks down at him, looking like he’s all his and yet not his at all. If he’s being honest with himself, he’s had that same cock-hungry look in his eyes ever since they first spoke back at the facility, and it’s only gotten worse since, and.

“Why?” Steve says, low, the words slipping out of his mouth before he can catch himself. “You interested in finding out?”

Bucky’s gaze falls to Steve’s mouth, the air around them suddenly heavy. Steve curves a hand around Bucky’s neck before he’s even aware he’s doing it, thumbing at the dark curls at the base of his neck, cock twitching in his pants as Bucky’s eyes go big and wanting. Steve pulls him in and kisses him, swallowing the sweet little gasp that escapes him as Steve slides his tongue past his lips. Heat pooling in his belly, he bends and grabs him by the thighs to pick him up, drawing another gasp out of him, Bucky’s legs instinctively wrapping around Steve’s waist as he starts to walk towards the bedroom.

Bucky kisses eagerly and sloppily, hips rutting against Steve desperately, _like a teenager on prom night_ Steve’s brain jeers at him as he lays him down, cock throbbing in his pants at the whine he lets out, how wrecked he looks already. 

“Easy, easy,” Steve’s shushing him as Bucky grabs at him, trying to pull him on top of him again.

“C’ _mon_ ,” Bucky whines, impatient as always, arching against him.

“You need it that bad, huh?” Steve murmurs, sitting back a little, wanting to get a good look at him. 

“I haven’t had sex in five days, Steve,” Bucky says gruffly, like it’s a great tragedy, which, to him, it is. “And up ‘til today I thought– I didn’t know if we even did this anymore or if you had a girl or a wife or what.”

Steve huffs a laugh. “Sanctity of my potential marriage didn’t stop you from parading around in those shorts the past two days though did it?” he says, getting his hands on Bucky’s bare thighs, gripping and squeezing just because he can now.

Bucky grins. “Well I didn’t know if you were _happily_ married,” he says. 

Steve shakes his head, hands roaming. His eyes practically glaze over as he rucks up his tee and sees he’s flushed all the way down to his chest, shoving the soft fabric out of the way and revealing a soft stomach and nipples that are hardened into flushed, rosy peaks. 

He curves a hand around his waist before looking lower, his mouth going dry at the dark wet patch visible even through Bucky’s little shorts, his cock twitching beneath the fabric under Steve’s gaze.

“ _Steve_ ,” Bucky whines again, starting to sit up, pawing at Steve’s shoulders like he’s going to shove him backwards and take care of things himself.

Yeah, he wants it.

Steve ducks his head to suck one of Bucky’s nipples into his mouth, takes Bucky’s grabbing hands and keeps them pinned against the bed as he gets his teeth in him, marking him up. Bucky moans breathily, eyelids fluttering, fucking gorgeous like this, just like he always is.

“ _Jesus,_ Buck,” Steve groans against him, one hand squeezing around both wrists so he can let the other travel south. 

“Christ, you’re strong,” Bucky breathes.

"Too tight?” he asks.

Bucky shakes his head. “Nuh-uh, it’s good,” he breathes, mouth falling with a moan as Steve finally tugs his shorts off of him, wrapping a hand around his dripping cock.

“ _Unh_ ,” Bucky slurs, bucking against him, fucking into the tight squeeze of his fist. Steve lets him, mouth dry as he watches him writhe. It’s different and it’s the same in a lot of ways. How desperate he gets for it, how loud he is when Steve’s got his hands on him – but Steve tries to pace himself, feels his breath catch in his throat as he takes in how breakable he looks, reminds himself how breakable he _is_ , arms straining against Steve’s grip futilely, his ribs slightly visible each time he inhales, which is often, Steve’s touch leaving him gasping, breathless.

So Steve tugs him off slowly, and he’s wet and especially needy like he only ever gets when it’s been a while, slicking Steve’s hand up ‘til it’s coated with precome, keening for it high in his throat. Then Steve strokes him faster, because it makes Bucky squirm, makes his back arch into it, wanting more, gets Steve a little lost in the sound of his desperate pleas as he leaks everywhere. He forgets himself a little, too used to a Bucky he can work orgasm after orgasm out of without stopping, without needing a break like most people would, and he gets even louder, wetter.

“Messy boy,” Steve murmurs, and that’s what sets him off, his stomach tightening suddenly as he whimpers and comes, whining as Steve strokes him through it, spurting all over his belly, his chest, his face. Steve keeps going until Bucky’s wincing and giving breathless mumbles of _too much_ , then he stops, snapping out of it, squeezing one last time before letting go.

“Sorry,” Bucky mumbles, face heating up even more. “You were just– You can’t do that and expect me _not_ to– stop _laughing_ at me,” Bucky demands, embarrassed.

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me, Buck,” Steve tells him, only half teasing, a fond smile on his face.

“I can– I can go again,” Bucky offers, wriggling hopefully. Steve eyes him speculatively. “Come, you know I can,” Bucky insists. “I want to, quit babying me.”

Bucky spreads his legs, feet up on the mattress, and Steve’s gaze falls to between his thighs, and the decision is suddenly simple. 

“Yeah, you’re gonna go again,” he tells him, low, releasing him to sit up and tug the nightstand open for lube.

Bucky grins. “Some things never change, huh?”

“Calling me easy?” Steve asks, shutting the drawer again.

“Do I ever stop?” he enquires.

Steve sets the lube down next to him, a helpless smile on his face. “Can’t say you do,” he admits. “You all cleaned up?” he asks as he pops the bottle open and gets his fingers slick, partly asking just to see that pretty blush colour Bucky’s face and chest again.

“Yes,” he says curtly.

“Good boy,” Steve murmurs, settling in between his legs, running a hand up his belly, fingers curling around his waist to keep him steady as he rubs a wet finger against the tight hole, feeling him tighten up before relaxing again. “That’s it. Just breathe for me,” he murmurs.

Bucky lets out a choked noise, and Steve glances up at him.

“What? Am I babying you again?”

Bucky shakes his head, avoiding Steve’s gaze. “No,” he breathes. “’S good.”

Steve grins, pushing one of his knees up against his chest for better access as he pushes a finger into the almost unbearably tight heat of him.

He works him open slow, but it’s easy once he’s gotten him wet enough, his sweet little hole giving so nicely for him under the press of his fingers that Steve can’t help but tease him about it.

“You’ve been busy, huh?” he asks him, tone thickly laced with innuendo, scissoring two of his digits instead of him now. Bucky’s eyes flicker open again.

“What?” he says, mindless, and then he catches what Steve’s implying, getting on the defensive even though he’s been making more than good use of the washing machine every morning after an eventful night of fucking himself open. “N-no.”

Steve presses his fingers deeper, and Bucky groans, low. “Uh-huh,” Steve says, disbelieving. Truth be told, he’s still so tight around him that it takes a while, and Steve has to weather a barrage of pleas and threats and insistence that he’s ready and he’ll die if Steve doesn’t put his dick in him right now immediately, all of which Steve ignores, while also avoiding his prostate to keep him from coming again.

It’s not until Steve’s four fingers deep in his ass that Bucky’s cock has fattened all the way up again, drooling precome all over his belly. Steve’s kissing him now, tongue sliding hot against his, Bucky pawing at him, hand in his hair, holding him close. It’s almost mindless, like muscle memory, the way Steve curls his fingers knowingly, gently massaging his walls as he sucks a mark into Bucky’s jaw. Bucky damn near shrieks as he finally, gently massages his spot; he’d arch all the way up off the bed if it weren’t for Steve on him, holding him in place. Steve pulls his fingers out of him with a low curse, pulling his dick out of his pants, getting it wet.

“How are you _still_ this much of a fucking tease,” Bucky pants, breathless, laying limp on the bed. “You–” his gaze falls to Steve’s cock. He’d never been lacking in that department, but the serum hadn’t exactly neglected it, either.

“What you call being a tease, I call making sure I don’t split you in half,” Steve tells him, as he spreads Bucky’s thighs a little more, pushing his knees up against his chest, cock twitching at the sight of him. He looks at Bucky’s dazed face, and gives a smug smile. “Sure you’re ready to take this?”

He nods frantically, thighs spreading even wider.

Steve presses the blunt head of his cock against his hole, forcefully suppressing the urge to shove into him hard and rough. His eyes flicker up to Bucky’s face and he watches it carefully as he slowly fucks into him, inch by inch, watches him pant softly, squirming, chest rising and falling rapidly as he takes it.

“That’s it,” Steve’s murmuring, soft and encouraging. “That’s it, sweetheart, just like that. Breathe for me, come on,” he tells him as he slowly fits himself inside his tight, slick heat. Bucky lets out a long, shuddering breath, and Steve feels him bear down, squeeze around him, moaning as Steve pushes a little further.

_“Jesus_ , Steve, that’s– a lot bigger,” he slurs, squirming a little.

Steve rumbles, his own fragile grasp on his self-control slipping as he feels him tighten again. Bucky’s glistening with sweat, flushed all over, clenching around him like a goddamn vice and Steve wants to bite and mark and _take._

He forces himself to still as he finally buries himself all the way inside. Bucky shivers, and Steve’s hands stroke comfortingly up his torso, thumbing at his nipples before coming to rest on his tiny fucking waist. He feels Bucky spasm around him, hips shifting against him almost experimentally, just a little at first, and then he does it some more, rolling them in small, clumsy circles.

“Keep wiggling around like that and you’re gonna find it real hard to sit down tomorrow,” Steve promises, voice tight.

“Thought that was a given,” Bucky says, purposely clenching around him, which is about as much as Steve can take.

Steve pulls out and shoves back into him, a low grunt escaping him, the headboard knocking back against the wall.

“Oh,” Bucky’s gasping as Steve draws back again, fucks into him again. “ _Oh_.” And then Steve leans over him, rocking his hips forward slowly, intently. Bucky gasps, a sharp, garbled whimper of Steve’s name falling from his red, wet mouth as Steve’s hips snap forward again, again.

“Right there, huh?” Steve murmurs, grinding into him deep, kissing him. “Yeah. This what you needed?”

“ _Yeah_ ,” Bucky moans into his mouth, grabbing at Steve, blunt fingernails digging into his back, his shoulders.

Steve rocks into him, hips rolling until he’s fucking him properly, kissing him wet and open-mouthed until Bucky’s shaking with it, not even kissing Steve back so much as he’s letting him fuck his mouth with his tongue, gasping out these breathless little sobs like it feels so good he doesn’t know what to do with himself.

“Jesus, Bucky,” Steve’s groaning against his skin, kissing down his jaw, sucking dark bruises into the soft, salty skin of his neck as he drives him into the mattress. He’s fucking shameless, like he’s always been when he’s getting fucked, whimpering high and loud and open-mouthed, begging for it harder, harder, _harder._

“I’m gonna,” Bucky garbles, like a warning, and Steve’s thrusts turn merciless, pounding into his slick, hot hole. “You’re gonna make me–” he chokes out, more urgently now, but Steve doesn’t stop, giving it to him faster, until Bucky’s letting out shocked little whimpers on each thrust.

Bucky comes screaming, and Steve can’t help but appreciate how much prettier those sounds are up close instead of tormenting him from across the hall, muffled by a pillow. It doesn’t take Steve much longer after that, the feeling of Bucky milking him dry the last straw after a long, long week of torturous frustration.

He buries his face in his neck as he spills hot and wet inside him, barely pulling out, fucking his come deep into his pliant, welcoming body, hips rolling into him over and over. They lay there in silence there for a long moment, Bucky breathing hard, Steve still rocking into him, trying to find the will to stop.

“We didn’t use a rubber,” Bucky mumbles, like he just remembered the concept of safe sex.

Steve looks at his face. He looks tired, but he’s wearing this satisfied little smile that makes his cock twitch inside him. He forces his hips to still.

“What, you afraid I’ll knock you up?” 

Bucky flushes. “No,” he says, sounding petulant about it. “Just like it better bare.”

“I know you do,” Steve assures him, slowly starting to pull out, until Bucky locks his thighs around his waist. They’re still shaking, practically made of jelly, but it gives Steve pause anyway.

“You’re still hard,” Bucky says in response to Steve’s raised eyebrows.

“Buck,” he begins.

“I can go again,” he says. Steve huffs a laugh.

“You’re gonna be sore enough tomorrow as it is,” he says, partly trying to convince himself as well as Bucky, which is hard, since he’s still buried balls deep in the molten, clutching heat of him.

“I can handle myself,” he insists. “I’m not made of glass.”

Steve looks down at him, deliberating, and Bucky looks right back, challenging. Then, Bucky lifts his hips towards him, wriggling in a completely uncoordinated, sporadic rhythm that, unfortunately, really works for Steve.

He pulls out of Bucky, so fast it knocks the air out of him, and then flips him over onto his belly. He sits on the back of his thighs, spreading his cheeks to get a good look at him – pushes a finger into his wet, clenching hole, because he’s right there and Steve clearly can’t help himself. Bucky gasps and Steve adds another, and then has to restrain himself from pulling them out and replacing them with his cock there and then.

He’d intended to mainly just check and see what the damage is and then _consider_ a second round, but the sight of Bucky’s well-fucked hole has made it more than a little hard to stay focused. Bucky’s swollen, all red and hot and puffy just like Steve expected, and as Steve watches his come leak steadily out of him due to his probing fingers, he’s suddenly finding it hard to remember why he shouldn’t give him exactly what he wants.

“Look at that,” Steve murmurs. “Might have to worry about you getting knocked up after all,” he says, just to get a rise out of him.

Bucky has his face half in a pillow, but Steve can see his ears turning pink.

“Even nastier in the future,” he mumbles.

Steve pushes his fingers in deeper. “Mm. How’s that feel?” he asks as Bucky writhes, overstimulated.

“Good,” Bucky breathes, voice cracking. “Sensitive.”

“Yeah? It hurt?” Steve asks, already mentally preparing to have to wait on him hand and foot tomorrow when he’s too sore to move.

“Yeah,” Bucky says in a small voice, “hurts good,” he tells him, before burying his face in a pillow like he’s embarrassed about admitting it. Steve adds a third finger, and Bucky gives a muffled whimper.

“Hey,” Steve says, soft, a hand stroking up Bucky’s back. Bucky makes an unintelligible sound. “None of that. Come on, you think I don’t already know how you like it?” 

Bucky takes a breath, moving his head so he can be heard. “I don’t– I wanna feel it. Tomorrow. I like when it– it makes me remember,” he says haltingly. Steve’s blood runs hot beneath his skin.

“Jesus, Buck,” he groans, low, slowly pulling his fingers out of him.

Bucky smiles a little as Steve shifts his weight, letting out a satisfied little hum as he lines himself up. Steve gets a hand against the small of his back, guiding his cock into him again with the other, stuffing him full. He covers him, caging him in against the mattress as he gives it to him, and Bucky’s shaking as he takes it, but greedy enough that he only moans for more. 

And Steve’s never been one to deny him.

***

He falls asleep after, like Steve knew he would, exhausted and satisfied.

Steve gently cleans him, mopping him down with a damp washcloth and then covering him up with a blanket before showering, taking his laptop to his office to call his husband.

As Bucky’s face appears on his monitor, he feels a little sheepish.

“Hey sweetheart,” Bucky greets him with a smile. He’s in bed, looking sleepy but happy to see him.

“I slept with him. With you,” Steve confesses in a rush. 

“What, just now?” Bucky grins. “Took you long enough.”

“I wasn’t planning to,” he mumbles. Bucky continues to look like he’s seconds away from telling Steve he told him so. “He was just really– I mean, you were–” he tries to explain, but words fail him.

“I know how I am, Steve,” Bucky assures him, grinning smugly. “I also know you’re real fucking easy. Always have been.”

***

He’s sore the next day, just like Steve warned him he would be. He comes into the kitchen to find Steve making himself some coffee and feeling more relaxed than he has all week.

“Hey trouble,” Steve says as he hears him enter, glancing over and then wincing sympathetically as Bucky waddles over to him. “That bad, huh?”

“Mm,” Bucky hums flippantly, going to bury his face in Steve’s broad chest. Steve’s arms come up to wrap around him reflexively, smiling warmly.

“How about we just take it easy today?” Steve suggests, rubbing comforting circles into Bucky’s back. “Kick back, watch some mov– _Bucky,_ ” he says as Bucky, without a word, slides his hand into Steve’s pyjama bottoms.

“ _Steve_ ,” Bucky mimics him, wrapping his hand around his dick and glancing up at him, a smile spreading across his face. “What? Just saying good morning,” he says, slowly starting to stroke him.

Steve – should put a stop to this. He should. He really should.

“I’m not fucking you,” is the compromise he finally comes to. “I’m all for your little pain kink, but you need to rest, and I draw the line at causing lasting damage.”

“Prude,” Bucky deadpans, and then goes to his knees, almost comically carefully slow about it. 

“Bucky–”

“I’m fine,” Bucky insists. Steve smiles in amusement as he watches him go. The smile dissolves as Bucky tugs Steve’s pyjama pants down, wets his lips and then looks back up at Steve through his lashes to say, “Warn me when you’re gonna come so you don’t drown me, alright?”

Steve says a silent prayer for strength as Bucky wraps a hand around him and licks at the underside of his shaft while he waits for an answer.

“Got it,” Steve manages.

Bucky smiles pleasantly, before taking him into that hot, wet mouth, wrapping his lips around the head before bobbing his head to take him deeper, a look of determination in his eyes. 

***

Shockingly, Bucky hasn’t magically fully recovered from what he’s starting to call Steve’s brutalisation of his asshole by that evening.

They’re laying on the sofa watching some baking show Bucky’s taken a liking to, and Bucky’s draped across Steve’s lap in a way that’s not very conducive to ensuring the continued safety of said still-sore asshole, but Steve stays strong. As strong as he can be.

“Want me to kiss it better?” Steve asks, thumbing at Bucky’s dramatically jutting lower lip, sullen because Steve still refuses to stick it in him. Bucky looks scandalised at the suggestion, his mouth dropping open in shock.

“That’s–” he says, and then falters, like he’s lost for words.

“What?” Steve asks, an eyebrow raised. Bucky purses his lips, cheeks reddening. “You never been licked before?”

Bucky huffs. “Don’t get all high and mighty with me, Rogers. You know what I have and haven’t done yet.”

“I get foggy with the specifics sometimes,” Steve says apologetically, the greedier, more possessive part of him rearing its head, wanting to give him this, even though it doesn’t make sense, because he’s going to be all of Bucky’s firsts either way, but. Still. He rubs a palm gently over Bucky’s pert ass. “You want it?” 

Bucky looks conflicted. “What’s it feel like?” he asks tentatively. A series of flashbacks consisting of a writhing Bucky crushing his head between his thighs while he licks at him runs through Steve’s head. Steve smiles.

“You’ll like it,” he assures him.

Bucky does like it.

He’s timid at first, squirming and wriggling as Steve laves over the tender flesh with his tongue, gentle but insistent. Then slowly he relaxes into it, and there’s a different kind of squirming, like he’s not sure if he wants to get away or get closer as Steve mouths at him hotly, gasping Steve’s name as he slowly starts to fuck him with his tongue, feeling him clench around it, wanting something inside.

Steve keeps at it for the better part of an hour, a hand down his own pants, working himself to release as Bucky grabs at his hair and shivers.

***

Banner calls him, like he does periodically, to update him about there being no updates yet regarding their attempts to figure out time-travel – this time though, he lets him know there’s some student tour of Stark Industries happening in the afternoon if he wants to bring Bucky in to marvel at some safe-for-public-viewing tech exhibitions since he seemed so interested in the lab work last time.

So Steve brings Bucky in.

He’s enraptured for the entire three hours the guide leads them around, gawking at each new piece of tech they’re shown, some so advanced they’d make even somebody born in today’s day and age do a double take. 

Steve has the fleeting thought that is the memory of Hill’s warning not to expose him to too much for time-travel reasons, but he shrugs it off. The look of sheer delight on Bucky’s face as they enter the planetarium is worth Bucky maybe accidentally saying that Pluto is no longer a planet a couple decades too early.

“I’d come here all the time if I lived here,” Bucky tells him, glancing up at the blanket of hyper realistic looking stars that light up the ceiling of the planetarium above, bright and vivid in the darkness of the space surrounding them.

Steve doesn’t tell him that he’s going to end up spending so much time here that he becomes pretty good friends with the janitor that cleans it after hours, but the thought does make him smile.

***

When they get home, Bucky insists he’s recovered enough to ride him.

He starts off fast, bouncing on Steve’s dick like he’s making up for lost time even though it’s only been two days, and Steve lets him, mesmerised by the sight of him taking what he wants, the feel of his hot little hole. But then, after a while, he has him slow down and lean back a little, has him brace his hands against the bed and roll his hips into Steve, until the steady, constant pressure against his spot has Bucky trembling, his cock flushed and leaking all over his belly. He doesn’t even reach for it ‘til he comes, gasping out a shocked cry of Steve’s name.

***

It’s a suspiciously quiet Thursday afternoon when Bucky discovers lingerie.

Steve gets the door when he hears the knock, and Bucky suddenly bursts out of the bedroom and runs into the hall so fast he skids along the floor in his socks.

“This for you?” Steve asks, amused, as he locks the door again. Bucky grabs the package out of Steve’s hands. It’s in a black bag with some French brand name written on it in cursive, and Bucky hides it behind his back like that action alone will render the package invisible.

“You gave me your credit card,” Bucky says, defensive. “You said I could get whatever I needed–”

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me, Buck,” Steve tells him, letting him off the hook.

Bucky just turns and flees again, slamming the bedroom door behind him as he goes. Steve stares after him for a moment, eyes narrowed, before shrugging and returning to his office.

***

It’s about twenty minutes before there’s a tentative knock on his door, followed by Bucky cracking it open and peering inside, only his head visible, looking uncharacteristically shy.

“You busy?” he asks Steve.

Steve sits back in his chair. “Not like that’s ever stopped you before.”

Bucky seems to brace himself, before opening the door wide, and stepping into Steve’s office.

Dressed in the tiniest, _eensiest_ little pair of lace panties Steve has ever seen in his life.

The scrap of fabric barely even covers his cock, the flushed tip hard and visible over the waistband, just a little wet, like he’d gotten all worked up just dressing up for Steve.

He’s got the matching bralette on too, the lace coyly covering his nipples and not much else; the skimpy material hugging his little tits so perfectly Steve just about swallows his own tongue.

“I was doing some research,” Bucky explains, looking mildly nervous still, shifting his weight from one foot to another. “And, uh. Well. Turns out fellas wear a lot of things nowadays.”

“Buck,” Steve chokes out.

Bucky looks emboldened by whatever the expression on Steve’s face is, turning in a circle so Steve can see him from all angles. His bruises don’t fade after a couple of hours like he’s used to, so Steve’s greeted with the shock of handprint marks on his ass, his thighs, darker bruises where Steve had made them with his teeth.

“You like it?” Bucky asks as he faces him again. 

“Yeah, honey,” Steve breathes, drawing on every ounce of his strength not to shove him against the nearest flat surface so he can tear off the pastel coloured obscenities he’s got on. Possibly with his teeth. He takes a deep breath and tries to think calming thoughts that won’t lead to him leaving Bucky sore for a _week_ this time around. “Now come here.”

“I’m not done yet,” Bucky says, eyes shining with satisfaction as he casually adjusts the waistband of his panties, drawing Steve’s gaze downward. “I got like five different pairs I want to show you.”

A muscle in Steve’s jaw jumps. “ _Five_ different pairs,” he repeats.

“It won’t take long,” Bucky assures him, parading out of the room again, a swing in his step. Steve leans back in his desk chair with a deep sigh, a hand coming to rest over the tent in his pants.

***

Bucky tries on two more sets. It’s a testament to Steve’s self-control that he let him leave the room at all after the first one, but he lets him have his fun. 

He leaves again, between each of them, to change into the next, as if he isn’t practically naked in all of them anyway, because he wants each new one to be a _‘surprise’_.

He gets closer each time around, stepping away from the doorway so Steve can see how they look up close, the tiny crystals in the satin or the detailing in the lace or the way the clasp is hidden like a little bow, all while insisting that he’s _not_ teasing and he’s _shocked_ that Steve would suggest such a thing because this is a perfectly innocent fashion exhibition.

He ends up bent over Steve’s desk anyway though, because of course he does. Partly because Steve puts him there, but who needs the details.

“I wasn’t finished,” Bucky whines, breathing heavy as Steve presses up against him.

“You’re a goddamn cocktease, is what you are,” Steve says, twanging the elastic of his bra strap and letting it snap against his back, just to hear him yelp.

He’s got a satiny blue matching pair on this time. Steve takes a moment to admire how the panties hug his ass from this angle, kneading the soft skin, so fucking sweet Steve wants to take a bite. He tugs them to the side, and pauses, then bites out a curse as he rubs two fingers against Bucky’s rim and confirms his suspicions. 

“You get yourself ready for me?” he asks, though he doesn’t even need to, can feel how slick and ready he is for it as he slips right in and starts to fingerfuck him with ease. Bucky’s panting softly, suddenly wholly unconcerned about the completion of his little fashion show.

“Didn’t want to waste any time,” he urges, ass wiggling. “Come on, gimme it.’

Steve doesn’t waste a second longer. His fingers dig into the meat of his narrow hips as he shoves up into him, hard enough that Bucky moves up the desk a little, lets out a choked sob. Steve grunts at the feel of him, grinding deep.

“ _Oh_ ,” Bucky whimpers as his pace turns bruising.

“Yeah,” Steve’s murmuring, pounding into him sloppy and rough. “That’s it.”

***

Steve usually makes his nightly call in private, and Bucky never attempts to follow him, though he knows, by now, who he’s going to speak to. Initially Steve wonders if it’s some sort of jealousy thing, but after a couple of days, he starts telling Steve to tell Bucky he says _hi_ or to ask him if he can remember what comes up on Miss Mollinson’s history final in ‘36 just in case he gets back before it’s over with and has to take it, and other small, inconsequential things, like he’s made his peace with not knowing much more than what he does right now.

Through Steve, Bucky says _hi_ back, and tells him he can’t remember much about the final but it doesn’t matter because he’s just gonna end up schmoozing his way into extra credit like he always does anyway, and calls him a little homewrecker one time, which makes Bucky laugh.

***

“You miss me a lot while I’m away?” Bucky asks him one evening, just as they’re about to fall asleep. “On business trips.”

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Steve says truthfully, thumb rubbing warm circles into his skin. “I– I go on them too, sometimes. And it’s hard, but. It helps. Knowing who you’re coming home to.”

Bucky yawns, tucking himself closer. “Kinda like when I get to go ‘round to Steve’s after school.”

Steve smiles. “Kind of like that, yeah.” Bucky makes a low noise of understanding.

“Gonna stop going with dames when I get back,” he says after a moment.

Steve pauses, half wary about that decision potentially causing some kind of ripple effect in the time-space continuum.

“Yeah?” he says finally, curious.

Bucky hums, already starting to drift off, warm against Steve’s chest. “I know what I want.”

***

He gets the call the very next day, while he’s trying futilely to get some work done despite having a lapful of Bucky. He can barely hear a word of what’s being said because of all the loud, excited hustle and bustle in the background, technicians throwing lab-speak back and forth.

“What’s going on?” Steve asks, brow furrowing.

It’s Sam that called him, which means something’s happened, something bigger than a samey update to assure him they’re still working on it, big enough for him to pause his Avenging and make his way down to the facility.

“They’ve got it,” Sam’s saying, sounding pleased, excited. “Tested and approved. We can get him home safe and sound.”

“Are you sure?” Steve asks, phone pressed to his ear, his voice a little tight largely due to the fact that Bucky is currently attached to his neck like a damn vampire, like he has been for the better part of the afternoon, like he’s trying to mark his territory. As he leans back in his office chair and tries to focus, Steve amusedly wonders if it has anything to do with the fact that his own Bucky’s meant to be returning home tomorrow. 

Living with two Bucky’s is such an unpredictable but also, mind-numbingly arousing scenario that he’s tried to not dwell on it too much, if at all.

“One-hundred percent,” comes another voice that Steve recognises as Scott’s, which means all hands must be on deck. “Wouldn’t bother you with anything less, Cap,” he assures him dutifully.

Steve sucks in a sharp breath, and not just because Bucky has gotten bored with bruising him up and has progressed to eagerly palming the bulge in Steve’s pants.

“Alright,” he says. “Got it. We’ll– be there. Eventually,” he tacks on, because they clearly still have unfinished business.

“You have an ETA?” Sam asks, taking the phone back.

“Just, uh,” Steve breathes as Bucky starts to undo his buckle, a wicked gleam in his eye. “Let’s give it a couple of hours. Gotta say our goodbyes, make sure he’s good to go.”

Bucky’s motions falter a little at Steve’s words, frowning.

“Ah. Sure thing, man,” Sam says, understanding. “Take your time.”

They hang up. Steve sets his phone down and looks at Bucky, who swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing.

“Are they– did they figure it out?” he asks.

Steve takes a breath. “Yeah, sweetheart,” he says, gentle. “Gonna have you back home by the end of today.”

Bucky nods, and his face is blank for a long moment. Then his eyes are suddenly glassy, teary, and he’s looking away, wiping at them with the back of his hand.

“Buck,” Steve says softly, reaching out to cradle his face, thumb swiping at his wet cheek.

“It’s stupid,” Bucky mumbles, turning his face into Steve’s palm. “I’ll miss you.”

“I’m gonna be right there when you get back,” Steve murmurs. “Always. You know that.”

Bucky gives a watery laugh.

“I know. That’s why it’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid,” Steve tells him, firm. A part of him aches too, but in a different way. He wants to travel through every facet of every timeline there is, pluck Bucky out of each of them and keep in his pocket, safe and sound.

Steve reaches for his desk drawer, pulling out a little polaroid shot that Natasha had taken last summer, and hands it to him to look at.

It’s a photo of him and Bucky; the version he’ll end up being someday. Long-haired and crinkly-eyed and with an arm made of vibranium.

In the picture, Steve’s holding a cup of ice cream he got from some stall, feeding him a spoonful of it. They look like a couple of lovesick idiots, giggling like newlyweds.

“Coney Island, last summer,” Steve tells him. “Just like every year. I’m all yours, Buck. You know that.”

Bucky’s lips curve into a small smile.

“This ain’t really goodbye then, huh?” he says, glancing up at Steve.

“Let’s call it more of a see you later.”

***

They take Steve’s motorcycle, as one last treat.

Bucky clings to him for dear life the whole way, and his eyes are bright with the thrill when he takes off his helmet as they arrive at the facility, coming round the back entrance where security and a crowd of officials are waiting to escort them inside, and to the appropriate floor.

Bucky’s dressed in the clothes he arrived in, as per Banner’s instructions, and he looks relaxed, excited, which makes Steve’s heart feel light. 

The way they say it’ll work is half the reason it took so long – so that he’ll end up back exactly at the point where he’d disappeared from in his own timeline a little over two weeks ago. Other than his own memories, it’d be as if he never left, leave everything undisrupted, and it’s better this way, least of all so he doesn’t have to answer any tough questions about his sudden disappearance. It makes things easier for him, and Steve’s glad for it.

They’ve already kissed enough for a hundred goodbyes at home, but as they arrive into a large room that’s an open clearing more than anything, Steve pulls him into a tight hug, lips pressed against the top of Bucky’s head as Bucky wraps his arms around him and squeezes.

He feels people awkwardly looking away from the PDA, but he doesn’t let go until Bucky eventually slackens his hold on him, pulling back, giving him a nod.

“I’m ready.”

Steve smiles sadly. “Yeah,” he says. “Bye, Buck.”

Bucky smiles back, and then he’s turning as he’s guided away by a woman in lab coat, Sam coming to stand by him and laying a comforting hand on his shoulder as they watch him step up on the pad surrounded by computers that are being supervised by Banner, the other officials tapping away at various parts of whirring machinery and buzzing equipment.

“Not like I’m going anywhere,” Bucky calls to him. “Remember?”

***

The first thing Steve does when Bucky gets home from his mission is descend on him at the front door and squeeze him into a bear hug until he starts to threaten Steve with bodily harm if he doesn’t stop constricting his lungs. Steve slackens his grip a little, before tilting his head to kiss him, soft and sweet. Bucky laughs, smiling into it, pulling back to look at Steve, hands grabbing at his face, pushing his hair back out of his forehead like he wants to get a good look at him.

“What?” Steve says, a hazy lovestruck grin still on his face as Bucky paws at him.

“You tell me,” Bucky says, laughing, thumbing at his beard. “You’re the one who’s been getting intimately acquainted with every crevice of my 16-year-old body for two weeks straight.”

“You gonna come over all jealous on me?” Steve teases.

“I’m serious. You look well-fucked, Rogers. I gotta hand it to me.” Steve smiles, leans in and kisses him again, and Bucky melts into it, arms looping around Steve’s neck.

“I missed you,” Steve murmurs after a long moment.

“Yeah? Sounds like you barely had time to.”

“You know what I mean,” Steve says, smiling. “I love all versions of you but I didn’t marry a teenager who’s still too scared to tell his best-friend he loves him.”

“Nah, you just fuck those ones and let ‘em go, huh?” he teases.

“Oh, yeah,” Steve tells him, pulling him closer. “You were _real_ flexible at sixteen though, you know that? _Very_ bendy.”

“Fuck off,” Bucky laughs.

“Not as into skincare though,” Steve muses. Bucky gapes.

“You didn’t have me using your fucking sixteen-in-one bodywash–”

“It’s _three_ in one, and you used it and you _liked it_ ,” Steve says, rubbing it in as Bucky’s expression morphs into one of horror. “You said it smells nice.”

“Against the Geneva Conventions is what that is.”

“Uh-huh,” Steve says. “A real tragedy.”

Bucky smiles, lips twitching like he’s trying to fight it.

“Come on, I need a shower,” he says, taking Steve’s hand and tugging him to the bathroom. “Maybe if I moisturise well enough afterwards it’ll have some kind of transfer effect through the space-time continuum or something.”

_///////////////in another timeline somewhere///////////////_

Bucky tells him a little after their wedding.

They’re in the kitchen doing the dishes together, and it’s a sense memory, a wave of something stronger than déjà vu. The smell of the apple-scented washing up soap, the television playing Great British Bake Off in the background, Steve’s hair starting to get a little long, like it always does when he’s taking some time off of active field duty.

He remembers in a rush and he finally fills Steve in, laughing to himself a little. It’s blurry, small details escaping him then coming back to him so he’s a little all over the place, but he gets through it all eventually, rinsing the suds off a dinner plate and glancing up at Steve who, dishcloth in hand, frowns into the middle distance for so long that Bucky wonders how long he’s been frozen like that.

“Steve? I break you or something?” Bucky asks, amused.

“You’re telling me when you were sixteen,” Steve says, speaking finally. “You travelled back in time–”

“Forwards,” Bucky corrects him, rinsing a cup.

“Right, of course,” Steve says drily. “Forwards in time, where you met. Me.”

“A version of you,” Bucky corrects.

Steve eyebrows perform a complicated flourish.

“A version of me,” he repeats slowly.

Steve narrows his eyes at him, clearly still piecing through it. 

Bucky doesn’t blame him. He’d thought about it all the time after he got back, trying to be careful not to reveal anything lest he land himself in a ward somewhere, but also not being able to forget what he knew. Not knowing how to go back to navigating the world where he and Steve casually called themselves _pal_ and danced around the idea of _more_ , because they knew there never could be. But Bucky knew.

He’d finally mumbled a helpless _I love you_ into Steve’s skin late one night, a couple years later, after they’d gotten their own little place together and would come home to each other every evening and talk about their days and make dinner and then take each other apart bit by bit like only the other knew how. After it’d been this omnipresent, unspoken thing between them for too long and Bucky couldn’t bear it any longer, and so he’d said it, quiet but fervent. Steve had gone still, quiet, then told Bucky he shouldn’t say things like that, that Steve would never be able to give him what a dame could, what even some other _fellas_ could, that he didn’t have what it took to make Bucky happy, couldn’t get a good job down at the docks or even keep an office job with how sick he gets every winter, and Bucky had responded that right there, in their tiny apartment with the loud neighbours and dingy stove and creaky floorboards, Steve had made him happier than he’d ever been in his life. Steve had cracked, told him he loved him back, over and over, like a dam bursting. Kept saying it, every chance he got.

Then came – everything else. And Bucky, for a while there, forgot that someone loved him, once.

And then there was Steve again, crashing back into his life, quite _literally_ crashing through walls sometimes. Telling Bucky that he’d never stopped loving him, would never stop; over and over, loudly and explosively, until Bucky believed him.

“Hold on. You say you two slept together?” Steve folds his arms, turning on Bucky.

“Really,” Bucky says, with a roll of his eyes. “ _That’s_ the part you wanna–”

“So you _did_.”

“He’s _you_ ,” Bucky scoffs.

“You said he was a _version_ of me,” Steve counters.

“Yes,” Bucky admits cautiously. “I did say that. But– _Steve,_ ” Bucky gasps as he bends and throws Bucky over his shoulder, heading towards the bedroom.

“What was the problem, huh?” Steve says, pushing the door open. “You weren’t getting it good enough at home?”

“You’re being ridiculous,” Bucky tells him, giggling helplessly despite himself as Steve tosses him onto the bed.

Steve grins as he kneels over him. “And getting fucked silly for two weeks straight after time-travelling ninety odd years into the future isn’t?”

Bucky kisses him so he’ll stop talking.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on twitter @mcwho4 \o/


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